


the world you make, clear and bright and blue

by petragem



Category: Life (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 10:51:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13052505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petragem/pseuds/petragem
Summary: Dani forgot the feeling that comes with nailing a UC assignment; she missed it.  How it's wild and loose; how it feels like flying, when you do it right, the cold clear clarity of it.  She has a gun taped under her mattress and a half-forged ID in her wallet; she has thirty plus years of life stories, grasped tight in her hands.Are you nervous, Crews asked her right before they went under.  Dani twisted her fake wedding band around her finger.  Dani said:No.





	the world you make, clear and bright and blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jouissant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide!

Here is what it is like to survive:

After Roman, Dani goes home, goes to her meetings, goes to her department-mandated psych eval.  She waits, and waits, and waits.

(“It could have been so much worse," Tidwell frets at her.  He hasn't left her side in a week.

Dani shrugs.  "It wasn't."  

Feels it deep down in her bones: this will never be the worst thing to have happened to her.  The worst things: those have all been of her own making.)

"Hey partner," Crews nods at her, two weeks later, once her official clearance comes through.

Dani breathes.

*

Tidwell bursts out from his office.  Declares they’re both riding the desk until Crews learns not to anger powerful Russian sociopaths on all of their behalf.

*

“How much longer is this desk thing going to be?  You can’t not let us do our jobs,” Dani argues, late at night, at Tidwell’s place.

“For as long as possible,” Tidwell answers promptly.  “Possibly forever, if I can get away with it.”

Dani stares at him.  Feels her face getting hot, and feels her hands start to shake. She is ready to _work_ , she has long been ready to work, to stop crime, to solve murders. She needs to work, or drink, or fuck, in that order, with someone who understands that, so.  She grabs her coat, grabs her keys, and leaves.  Knows she’s never going back.

*

Two weeks later, Tidwell spends the better part of a random Thursday morning, yelling into a phone, arguing against giving up two of his people for a month-long stretch for some fucking _mystery task force_ , specifically not looking at either Dani or Crews. Dani knows, she knows knows knows what's coming. 

Tidwell hauls them into his office, scowling.

*

Dani knows the taste of gin and the clinking of ice cubes against her teeth, the haze and the blur of fucking unidentifiable men, the ache in her bones, in her head, the next day.  Knows how easy it would be to get high.  How good it would feel, until it doesn’t.

She knows the Miranda rights frontward and back; she knows the moment a perp realizes he's told her more than he should.  Knows how the weight of her gun and the weight of her badge are never fully lifted.  Knows how to keep her head down, and ask the right questions.  Knows she is going to like this task force more than she should.  

*

They’re given an address across town, and a sergeant’s name.  The drive is quiet.  LA blurs across the dashboard in front of them.  

“So, you and Tidwell. Things going great there, huh,” Crews tries, after thirty minutes of drumming his thumbs against the passenger’s seat.

“Me and Tidwell, nothing,” Dani answers. Grips the wheel tighter.

*

A Terrorism task force, Russians.  A call to weed out any other federal agents and LAPD not brought down in the Roman mess.

Dani thinks of the bag on her head, the ropes on her wrists. She thinks about what Crews told her after, how the LAPD always seemed to be half a step behind him. How someone high above must have known more than they should.

*

"You want us to pretend to be a couple,” Dani says, incredulous.

The sergeant looks at them, impatient. ”You’re friends.  How hard could it be?"

"We’re not friends; we’re partners."

“We’re friendly partners,” Crews interjects.

Dani glares at him. “Partners, nonetheless.” 

Crews smiles at her, standing at attention. Waiting for her to take the lead. Dani says: “We should be a divorced couple.  Way more believable."

The sergeant looks at them, tilts her head.  Says: "You know, that could actually work.  The mark’s a real romantic.  He’ll be pushing Crews to reconcile with her, inviting both of you into the fold.  Into his life.”

Crews doesn’t look convinced.  Dani feels the pulse of her heart tick up, faster, faster, with the memory of the fake FBI task force. With not being allowed to do anything for the past several fucking months.

"It's four weeks, Crews,” Dani says.  Narrows her eyes at the sergeant, challenging.  “How hard could it be?”

The sergeant claps her hands together.  “Great!  So that’s settled.  Now, for your covers: we’re using real names.  Crews is too well known, and anyone who goes digging for intel on him is going to connect him to Dani.  So, you’ve been together all along, Dani’s retired now, working private security, and Crews—you’re dirty.”

“I’m not dirty,” Crews says, affronted.  

“You are now.  Anyone asks, you’re still with the department but there’s rumors you’re in somebody’s pocket, or skimming money, or just wreaking general havoc out of spite for the whole falsely imprisoned thing, whatever, I don’t care.  Officially, we’re putting you on leave.”  

Dani glances at Crews, glances back to the sarge.  “What exactly are we investigating here? And why can’t I be a cop too?”

“You have more experience UC—thought it’d be better if we gave you a separate but similar job, sort of come at them from two different angles. We think the Russians still have someone inside the LAPD.  This task force is off the books, but it should be straightforward.  We send you in, and see who starts digging around for info on you.  Info on Dani.  IT’s flagging all internal searches.  Shouldn’t take too long, once you make contact.  You'll be in and out.”

Crews shoots her a look.

“In and out,” Dani repeats.

*

They are given a day to get their affairs in order, to notify anyone who might need to be notified that they’ll be out of touch for a little while.  

Dani goes home, calls her mom, cleans out her fridge.

“Let’s work out our cover,” Crews says, two hours later.  “We got married and you left me and I am bereft.”

“Who says I left you?” Dani asks.  “You’re gonna be the one with the shiny new house on embezzeler’s boulevard.  That smells like a mid-life crisis, to me.”  She hastily shoves a half-dry frying pan into her kitchen cabinet.  “Also, like.  Don’t you have shit to take care of at home?”

“Ted takes care of all my shit.  And Ted’s in Spain.  And I don’t really have anything to take care of, anyway, other than my empty house.”

Dani sighs. “Okay. Let’s start at the beginning: how did we meet?”

“Work,” Crews answers promptly, proud of himself. “Same as real life.” He pulls an orange out of his pocket. Starts peeling it. Hands half to her. “How long have we been together?”

They hash it out for hours: first date, first fight. What they loved about each other, and what they hated. Code words and rendezvous points. How they’ll assume anything that’s said at his apartment will be monitored by LAPD and bugged by the mark. How they’ll get out, if they need to. 

Dani throws her perishables into a stir fry. Stands elbow to elbow next to Crews at the stove. They argue over whether they eloped in Vegas or Palm Springs. They argue over whether Crews would’ve left, or if Dani would’ve kicked him out. They argue, and argue, and argue.

*

Next day Crews moves in next door to the mark as Dani moves into an apartment across town.  He calls Dani three days in a row, and yells, and cries, and begs.  Pacing in and out of the house, in the front yard, in the back.  Loud enough so that anyone who is listening is sure to hear. 

“A lot to get off your chest there, huh Crews,” Dani says, casually, not a care in the world.  Feet up on the kitchen table of her half-furnished cover apartment.

*

Their code:  _I miss you_ means everything’s going fine.   _I love you_ means we’re on the right track, hold tight, or yes, if to a direct question.   _I want you_ means we need to meet; I’ve got something to tell you.

_I want you back_ means we got what we needed—time to get out.

*

Dani forgot the feeling that comes with working a UC assignment; she missed it.  How it's wild and loose; how it feels like flying, when you do it right, the cold clear clarity of it. She has a gun taped under her mattress and a half-forged ID in her wallet; she has thirty plus years of life stories, grasped tight in her hands. 

“Are you nervous,” Crews asked her right before they went under. 

Dani twisted her fake wedding band around her finger. Dani said: “No.”

*

"I used to fight with my ex-wife a lot, too," Dani hears the next day, over the bug Crews planted in his mailbox.  "Possibly you are fighting because you don't want her to be an ex, yeah?"

Crews hedges, and scuffs his shoe against the pavement.  Charlie agrees with the mark.

"I can give her a job, with my new wife.  Maybe to have her closer, it would make it easier for both of you, to realize this? What company does she work for? I will call them.”

Dani rolls her eyes, drops her headset.  Announces to the room, "I'm in.”

*

The mark’s true to his word—he makes contact with the fake security company Dani works for that very day. Dani gets orders from the sarge to report to the mark’s residence at 0900 the next morning. That night, when Crews calls to fake beg her to take him back, he gives the signal to meet.

“Is there anything I need to know before tomorrow,” Dani murmurs, fake-examining a bin of avocados.

“He keeps regular hours—she does not. She drives herself when she goes out during the day, but takes a car at night. I don’t know where exactly she goes but-“

“Crews. I’m not going to self-destruct if I set foot in a bar.”

Crews furrows his brow at a kiwi display. “Just wanted you to be aware of the landscape.” Looks up at her, grins. “See you tomorrow, wife.”

“Ex-wife.”

“See? We’re in character already.”

*

Dani meets the mark, meets his wife. Julie. American, or good at faking an accent, at least. Blonde, and petite, and Dani suspects, sharper than she lets on.

Sees Crews tending to his citrus tree as she does random yard checks; Julie sunbathes on the back terrace. Dani lets herself freeze, and stew, and walk over to Crews. Slaps him across his face.

“So pissed, you’re playing this pissed, huh,” Crews says, barely containing his laughter, hand coming up to rub at his jaw. 

“I believe in verisimilitude,” Dani replies. Grins.

* 

Dani spends the next ten days trailing the mark’s girlfriend around Malibu. Day one she may have been open to the possibility of Julie being somehow involved in the whole alleged scheme but by day four—by day four Dani is firmly certain she is not. Dani both hopes and does not hope Crews is having better luck with the mark. Hopes, because she wants to get the guy. Doesn’t hope, because she wants to be the one to do it.

“I forgot how beautiful you are,” Crews tells her when he calls her on day two.

“I love you,” he says when he calls on day seven.

“Do you remember the road trip we took to that winery,” Crews asks, day, nine, Dani running out of ways to sound disinterested. Dani realizing: she looks forward to his calls.

“I loved you in that hot tub,” Dani tells him, brazen. “I had never loved you more.”

“I want you,” Crews says when he calls her on day eleven.

“Thank fuck,” Dani says.  Grabs her bag, grabs her gun, and heads to their rendezvous point.

* 

Another grocery store: Crews browses for pears, for lemons, for tiny personal pineapples. Dani sidles up next to him as he smiles at a shelf full of nectarines. Brushes her arm against his as she reaches for a pomegranate. “You rang?”

Crews rocks back on his heels. Looks sideways at her hands. At her mouth. “We’re getting closer. The mark asked me if I wanted to buy his yacht to give you as an apology gift.”

“And the case, Crews?” Dani says, trying to school her face into something serious and utterly failing. “Also you’d have more luck with a motorcycle than a yacht, FYI.”

“Noted,” Crews answers, skin turning pink, and touches a mango, a cantaloupe. “Also he asked if I was satisfied with my job and I told him no, so, an offer to further infiltrate the LAPD may soon be forthcoming. He wants to take me out to a club this weekend to celebrate our friendship. He wants me to ask you to join us.”

“Excellent,” Dani says, and throws three bananas into her shopping cart. 

*

“Is this a fucking _strip club_ ,” Dani hisses, trailing behind the mark, his wife, the mark’s three personal bodyguards. 

Crews rests his hand on the curve of her hip. Keeps it there, when they’re led into a private room in the back corner.

“We’re supposed to be divorced,” Dani murmurs, glancing at the guards against the back wall, glancing at the exits. One eye on Crews’s mouth. “Stop distracting me.”

“Dani, Charlie,” the mark calls out. “Come join us. Dani, please; you are not working tonight. You are our guest.”

She watches, as Crews slides into the booth. As the waitresses circle with trays of drinks, as the dancers do their thing, skin and breasts and too-tight lingerie. There’s a woman—or, possibly, women—gasping with (surely faked) pleasure two doors down. Dani sits down next to Crews. Dani shifts in her seat, uncomfortably.

The mark kisses Julie’s neck, and his hands disappear under the table; more girls come and go. The bodyguards look on, like identical brick houses, muscles on muscles on muscles. Crews grins at the appetizer menu. 

“Should we order mozzarella sticks?” Crews asks brightly.

The mark looks up, eyes unfocused. “I think Julie and I will go somewhere slightly more private. Please, stay here.” He waves vaguely at the half-naked women milling around their otherwise empty room. “Enjoy the show.”

They leave, but two of the guards—the guards stay behind. Watching.

Dani puts her hand on Crews’s thigh, leans close. “Are they going to lock us in here until we fuck? Is that what this guy’s plan is? Seriously?”

Crews’s face flushes. Says into her ear: “Blackmail? Or just the goodwill of a friendly Russian mafia boss wanting to see his new favorite neighbor make love to his recently estranged wife?”

Dani hums a sound something like agreement, and she doesn’t know—doesn’t know if it’s the room or the music or the op, some deep-seated Pavlovian response to undercover, or Crews’s voice in her ear every night, talking about some fake broken life together they’ve never had; Crews’s voice in her ear right now; the word love. How physically trapped they are.

Crews leans closer. Wraps an arm around her shoulders.  Glances at the door, at the guards.  Says, quiet: "I can get us out of this.  If you want."

Dani can see it now, Crews fighting the way out of the club, punches thrown, bones broken.  The knife he keeps stashed in his sock, slashing through the air.  What people would say.  Crews, semi-rogue on a barely authorized task force.  Another trail of bodies left behind they can't prosecute.  Dani squares her shoulders, leans close into Crews. Shakes her head.  “I don’t.”  Then:

"Show me how you killed him,” she asks.

Crews's face stays careful, guarded.  "Killed who?”

“Roman.”

Crews touches her shoulders, gently.  Taps three fingers against the side of her neck.  Slides his thumb into the hollow at her throat; slides it higher.  Rubs gently in a circle.  “There.”

Dani swallows.  Tilts her face up. Kisses him, slowly, brings her hand up to touch his. To keep it loose around her neck. It stays slow, Crews letting her set the pace, and she savors it, how slow, how steady it is, Crews’s tongue sliding against hers and his hands warm on her body. When the stretch in her neck is too much, she breaks away, she takes a breath. She twists, and turns, and climbs into his lap. 

"Those men are still watching us," Crews says, conversationally, nosing into her ear, hands wrapped tight around her ribs.

Dani whines into his mouth, grinds against him, until he slides them to her ass. Shifts in his lap.  Can feel him half-hard underneath her.

"That's not a problem for me,” she murmurs back at him

"Could go home."

"There are cops monitoring the wires at your home."

Crews exhales heavily.  "Fuck."

Dani lifts herself slightly, works a hand down to his crotch.  Rubs until he is all the way hard.  "That's the idea, Crews, we’ve been over this.”

His face turns pink; he glances at the guards.  "Can you, uh.  Give us a minute, fellas.”

They give them a minute. Dani looks him straight in the eyes, and unbuttons his pants.

“Reese,” he says into her ear when he comes.

“Touch me,” Reese says into his.

*

"We don't have to talk about it,” Crews says, quietly.  Idling in front of her cover apartment.  Dani still feels the pressure of his lips, of his hands. The bite of the table at her back when Crews spread her out over it, worked two fingers down her pants.

Dani looks at him, evenly; for a split second, she pictures herself leaning over. Pictures her mouth on his dick.  “Okay,” she says. “Let’s not talk about it.”

The corners of Crews's mouth tighten. He watches as she unbuckles, gets out. Slams the car door.

*

"It was just breakup sex," she tells him next day, in the neighborhood to start her fake Julie-watch shift, at the mark’s front gate.  She feels giddy, like she can't believe they got away with it.  She feels like a whole new person.

"We already had breakup sex," Crews answers, teasing.  "When we broke up.  Right before you kicked me out of the house."

"That didn't count.  You didn't go down on me."

Crews is quiet for a long time.  "I didn't go down on you last night, either."

"Huh.  Well then.”

*

She knocks on his front door at the end of her shift. Lets him pull her inside. Lets him kiss his way down her body, her hand clamped tight over her mouth, to keep herself from crying out. From getting picked up on the wires.

“Tell me something,” Crews asks, after, kissing her stomach, kissing her breasts. “Why is UC Reese so angry at UC Crews?”

“Maybe UC Crews had an affair.”

Crews stills. “UC Crews would never.”

*

“Do you know what you’re doing?” the sergeant asks, later that night. Dani alone in her cover apartment, calling in for her nightly debrief.

Dani answers without hesitation: “Yes. I do.”

*

The first time she almost kissed Crews: 

Early on in their partnership, before she even fully realized she could trust him, four drinks in. A text message: a tip came in, did she want to come with him to go question a witness.  One look at her and he offered to drive; Dani resented his tact and his ease and his face, and that all of her fuckups got her assigned to him.  Resented that she wanted to pull him into the backseat, climb onto his lap.  Kiss him on the mouth.

She slumped into the passenger seat.  Sighed heavily.  Snapped, ”Well, _drive_.”  Dropped her shades over her eyes.

*

It becomes a routine: Dani goes to work, Dani goes with Julie to brunch, to the spa, to the boutiques, to the clubs. Nothing ever quite the same but nothing different enough from the lifestyle of a moneyed LA wife. Or at least: what Dani imagines the lifestyle of a moneyed, non-criminal LA wife to be.

Dani goes to Crews’s house. They learn how to turn off the wires.

“Thought about this all day,” Crews says, stripping off her shirt, her pants, her bra. 

A thing Dani learned in her last undercover stint: She didn't ever want just one hit, just one drink. She wants five, or twelve, or twenty.

Crews's hand curls around her wrist.

She doesn't want just one kiss.  She wants: five, or twelve, or twenty; Crews's hand on her thigh and his mouth on her neck; his tongue on her clit, the whole length of him, friction, inside her.

"Crews.  You shouldn't say stuff like that," she says.

"I should," Crews answers, mildly.

Dani’s quiet for a long moment.  Asks: “Do you ever think of me?” 

He says: “Yes.”

Dani says: “Tell me how.” She half-expects it to be made up, absurd, like everything else they’ve done and talked about. Her on all fours, riding his dick, or her ass, or a threesome. Whatever it is straight white men think about.

Instead, he kisses the hollow of her throat, and traces her body with his fingertips. Says: “I think about you at work, now that you’re not there with me. I think about the smell of your neck, of your breasts, of the freckle on your ribcage. I think of your hands, and your eyes, and your legs around my waist.” He trails his hand down to her clit, to her sex. Finds her wet. Swings himself over her, lines them up. Brackets his arms next to her head.

He says: “I think about doing this.” Fucks in and out of her, so, so slowly.

Dani thinks: _I am your superior officer._

Dani thinks: _When I get off, I think of your mouth._

Dani says: “Harder, Crews,” and works a hand down to her clit.

*

She does think of his mouth; she thinks about it frustratingly often. She thinks about his tongue at her wetness, and the steady relentless pressure of his mouth working her over, tongue circling, and circling, and circling her clit. She thinks about Crews making her beg.

*

The second time she almost kissed him: a year into their partnership, Dani’s stomach sinking more and more every time she thought about her father.  Every time something seemingly disconnected happened, the way Crews’s entire body perked up, on alert. Every time someone hinted at the fact that her dad was more than just a bad guy, a shitty father, but something worse, darker, criminal.  She asked Crews a question about him, innocent, benign, just to see what he’d say.

Crews lied.  Dani knew he lied, and she was so, so grateful.

*

The sergeant calls: they got the mark. A warrant’s been issued for a lieutenant in major crimes, three officers in the LAX division, two men in narcotics. They’re to stay out of sight until they make the arrests.

*

The third time she almost kissed Crews.

Wiring him up for his move into the cover house, for his presumable first meeting with the mark, checking, and checking, and triple checking mic volumes and stray background noise.  Thinking how vulnerable they were going to be, undercover.  The level of trust, or of folly, to put your life in someone else's hands.

Dani looked at his mouth, his hands, his shoulders.  Stepped closer.  Tilted her face up.

Said, "Don't fuck this up.”

*

Crews looks at her, them both sprawled out in Dani’s bed.  “When we go home tomorrow, will we go back to normal?”

Dani shakes her head, _no_.

Crews exhales, his long lanky body relaxing into something loose, into something easy. Turns to face her. Smiles. “Hi, partner.”

Dani wraps her legs around waist; reaches for his chest, for his shoulders, for his neck. Presses a kiss into his cheek. “Hi.”

**Author's Note:**

> One million thank yous to L for the encouragement/beta.


End file.
